LITMIR.BIZ

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a shadow that departs

       As the eye scans its bodiless outlines!

       Thou golden-imaged Ruin and Despair!

       When this earth cracks, like a poor blasted rock,

       Before the burning of Almighty wrath,

       Thy pallid spectre shall rise up to judge

       The wretched victims that did trust in thee!

      "O Heaven!" I said, "lead me to love and peace;

       Love, that makes all things calm and beautiful,

       And like the sun, e'en in its setting, flings

       A glory o'er the cloudy peaks of Time.

       Peace—that doth hush the throbbing voice of life,

       Till through the stillness of the Poet's soul,

       The echoes of Seraphic harmonies

       Float like a spirit through the blue eterne."

       I said—"I will sit neath the ancient woods,

       And list unto the voices of the winds

       Coming from far o'er spirit lands, and full

       With stolen snatches of their utterance."

       I said—"I will lay bare my soul unto the sun,

       And let its glory rest there till it charm

       Forth from its womb, as flowers from the cold ground,

       All lovely thoughts and high imaginings

       That shed sweet perfume o'er the waste of life.

       And when the sickle of autumnal time

       Gathereth in the harvest of ripe thought,

       Nourish and strengthen long futurity."

      Then as an eagle fleeth to his crag

       High in the stillness of the dim cloudland,

       Fled I from man into the trackless woods,

       To sate my soul with quietude and song.

       Then, too, ye saw me, ye pure orbs of heaven,

       And sent your blessed radiance to my heart

       In the still twilight of my calm content!

       Then came an answer to the unseen voice—

       "O holy calmness of the inner soul!

       Treasure of treasures! sweetness of all sense!

       Athwart the smoothness of whose liquid tide

       Floateth the spirit of eternal love,

       Tracing a pathway to the All-Divine!

       Thine is the perfectness of earthly bliss,

       The brimming of life's chalice o'er with peace,

       Till thro' all thought and feeling, the pure draught

       Sheddeth its gladness and serenity.

       Thine is a joyance passing utterance,

       A deep delight, that like the songs of heaven,

       Swell through its fulness, but are mute without.

       Thou art the goal of most sublime desire,

       The haven that all longing seeketh for,

       Where, shaded from the storms and blasts of life,

       The bark glides gently down the stream of Time."

      How cloudless is this azure firmament!

       Brighter than all the dreams of sinless youth!

       Deeper than the deep heart of woman's love!

       Now as I gaze upon each shining star,

       What visions steal upon me with its rays,

       Of that which makes its glorious excellence!

       Can there be revelation of high truths

       But through the channels of weak sense alone,

       Thus like a fountain filt'ring thro' the clay.

       Or doth the soul hold converse spiritual

       With powers unseen that fill the universe,

       Receiving, as by intuition, things

       That man attains not by intelligence?

       Is not the spirit perfect in itself,

       Unmingled with the base alloy of earth

       That prisons it within this narrow sphere?

       Hath it not apprehension natural,

       Attributive as immortality,

       Unshackled by an organ that will die

       Beneath the friction of a few short years?

       O there is blindness on us in this life,

       That seeth not the things which lie around,

       E'en in the circuit of our littleness!

       But death will loose the scales from off our eyes,

       And smite our fleshly dwelling place in twain;

       Freeing the spirit, till with joyous wings

       It cleave the limits of immensity.

       Yet now the soul will shake its fetters off, And yearn unto the freedom of the skies, Like a poor bird whose life is liberty.

      Yon star, methinks, must be a glorious world,

       Where Nature hath a spiritual life

       And bloometh on in Spring perpetual,

       Unsatiating in its loveliness.

       Verdure of herb and leafy plenitude

       Spread o'er it like a vesture, and the glow

       Of sunlit waters smiling from afar,

       Half as in fancy, half reality.

       The skies above it glassy and serene

       As the reflection of its own repose,

       And every new alternation of the light

       Shedding new beauties on the scene below.

       Thus far in fashion, kin to Earth as Time

       Beareth the impress of Eternity,

       But differing henceforth as the gentle dove

       Doth from the vulture on its carrion:

       The dwellers on this paradisal sphere

       Methinks, must be of glorious lineament,

       Clad with the brightness of eternal youth,

       And buoyant with internal blessedness.

       Spirits that shining with untarnished light,

       Radiate, and make matter luminous,

       Filling the eyes with sweet felicity,

       And love, and peace, and all emotions pure.

       No sorrow there to make the vision dim,

       And wash the mellow ripeness from the cheek;

       No guilty deed to brand the heart with shame,

       And write its direful sentence on the brow;

       No rankling venom struggling through the veins,

       And blasting all the kindliness within,

       Till like a torrent bursting o'er restraint,

       It spread its desolation on mankind;

       But a pure regnant holiness and love,

       Directing impulse with most queenly sway

       To ends of tenderness and charity;

       A nature purified by fellowship

       With angels and bright ministers of Heaven,

       That wander thither from their homes above

      

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